Laboratory of Stem Cell Dynamics, School of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, 1011, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Nat Commun. 2020 Nov 6;11(1):5645. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19485-3.
The formation of hair follicles, a landmark of mammals, requires complex mesenchymal-epithelial interactions and it is commonly believed that embryonic epidermal cells are the only cells that can respond to hair follicle morphogenetic signals in vivo. Here, we demonstrate that epithelial stem cells of non-skin origin (e.g. that of cornea, oesophagus, vagina, bladder, prostate) that express the transcription factor Tp63, a master gene for the development of epidermis and its appendages, can respond to skin morphogenetic signals. When exposed to a newborn skin microenvironment, these cells express hair-follicle lineage markers and contribute to hair follicles, sebaceous glands and/or epidermis renewal. Our results demonstrate that lineage restriction is not immutable and support the notion that all Tp63-expressing epithelial stem cells, independently of their embryonic origin, have latent skin competence explaining why aberrant hair follicles or sebaceous glands are sometimes observed in non-skin tissues (e.g. in cornea, vagina or thymus).
毛囊的形成是哺乳动物的一个标志性特征，需要复杂的间质-上皮相互作用，人们普遍认为胚胎表皮细胞是唯一能在体内对毛囊形态发生信号做出反应的细胞。在这里，我们证明了表达转录因子 Tp63 的非皮肤来源的上皮干细胞（如角膜、食管、阴道、膀胱、前列腺等）可以对皮肤形态发生信号做出反应。当暴露于新生儿皮肤微环境时，这些细胞表达毛囊谱系标志物，并有助于毛囊、皮脂腺和/或表皮的更新。我们的研究结果表明，谱系限制不是一成不变的，并支持这样一种观点，即所有表达 Tp63 的上皮干细胞，无论其胚胎来源如何，都具有潜在的皮肤能力，这可以解释为什么在非皮肤组织（如角膜、阴道或胸腺）中有时会观察到异常的毛囊或皮脂腺。
